This term drama students in year 9 have been tasked with creating an original devised piece of theatre as part of our annual year 9 drama competition. Students are given a range of stimuli to choose from and often surprise us with highly innovative drama performances ranging in style and genre.

This year’s entries to the competition were no exception with every group producing very thought provoking, imaginative or incredibly funny performance ideas. After much deliberation seven groups qualified for the final held this week.

The final began with a dance drama piece inspired by Van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’. This was a fantastic piece of drama to kick off proceedings and demonstrated the original creative approach that our students are bringing to their drama lessons. The second performance, ‘The Interrogation’, brought clever script writing and well thought out characters. All four actors produced excellent performances and in another year, could have won this competition. ‘Walt’ followed. A condensed documentary covering the life of Walt Disney, drawing on recognisable imagery from a variety of Disney films to add comical effect. ‘No Way Out’ took this year’s competition in a different direction. This play was thought provoking with shocking moments of high tension. A brilliant portrayal by Tom of a troubled autistic teenager was one of the highlights of the competition. ‘Vladimir Mouthlungs’, a play with the strangest title I have ever heard brought much needed comic relief after the emotion of ‘No way Out’. This was followed by two more comedies – ‘False Robbery’ and ‘Pirates of the Corporation’. Both of these performances produced many moments of hilarity with their surreal approach to humour. Congratulations go to all year 9 students who made it to the final and particularly to the high achievers who were nominated for awards below.

Best Overall Play

1st: No Way Out (9B/Dr1)

2nd: Pirates of the Corporation (9C/Dr1)

3rd: The Interrogation and Vladimir Mouthlungs (

Best Lead Actor

Winner: Tom Phillips

Nominations: Leo Enright, Jake Norris-Ataie

Best Lead Actress

Winner: Csenge Szabo

Nominations: Inaya Khan, Rebecca Allen

Best Supporting Actor

Winner: Luke Andrews

Nominations: Archie Sykes, Phillip Nuka, Shyam Pattni

Best Supporting Actress

Winner: Crystal May

Nominations: Zara Naghibi, Zeal Rathod

Best Technical/Design Ideas

Winner: Starry Night

Nominations: Walt, Pirates of the Corporation

Best Dramatic Moment

Winner: Pirates of the Corporation (‘It’s Dave!’)

Nominations: Walt (The ‘Lion King’ moment), Vladimir MouthLungs (the ‘Heathrow/Deathrow’ joke.

The winning group ‘No Way Out’